Natural gas futures flipped to gains and losses through midday trading Friday as the market weighed opposing LNG factors. For bears, interruptions to work at the Golden Pass liquefied natural gas project fed speculation about potential delays, while bulls cheered Freeport starting up a third train.
Here’s the latest:
- June Nymex futures down 3.9 cents to $2.262/MMBtu as of 2:15 p.m. ET
- Freeport LNG taking 2.01 million Dth/d in Friday’s flows, indicating its third train has started up
Feed gas deliveries to the Freeport facility struggled through spring, but since April 27 have been steadily climbing. On Friday, nominations exceeded an equivalent of 2 Bcf/d for the first time since January, data from NGI’s LNG Export Tracker show.
“The third train has clearly come back into service,” Criterion Research’s James Bevan, vice president of Research, said on energy platform Enelyst.
U.S. LNG feed gas flows at 13.37 million Dth/d Friday were the highest since March 23.
- Golden Pass confirmed interruptions on its Texas export project
Zachry Group informed its hourly subcontractors Thursday not to come to the Sabine Pass, TX, site until further notice and referenced a “fuel shortage” issue. The project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractors were discussing the role of Zachry going forward, and a Golden Pass spokesperson said those discussions could impact site activity, NGI senior editor for LNG, Jacob Dick, reports.
The near-term delays come as speculation has mounted that the terminal’s first LNG exports could be pushed back until the second half of 2025.
- Cash prices declined in most regions, with notable exception South Central higher day/day, according to NGI’s MidDay Price Alert
- Appalachia Regional Avg. off 6.5 cents to $1.490, MidDay Price Alert data show
- Waha up 71.5 cents to negative $2.390, on track to erase the previous day’s decline
Weather forecasts were pointing to below-normal demand over the next 15 days, starting this weekend, with a lack of significant heat in major cities across the eastern half of the country, according to Maxar’s Weather Desk.
However, Maxar warned confidence is lower than usual for near-term forecasts because the models have diverged on whether trends would turn colder or warmer. The American model trended cooler in its midday update, widening the discrepancy between the models, NatGasWeather said.
If the European model’s midday update continues to trend warmer “this sets up a potentially dangerous weekend to hold since one of these models will prove to be more wrong than the other,” NatGasWeather said.
